If people were cattle there’d be laws against us getting around like this

London feels full. And it’s the same story in every major city across the UK where “rush” hour now means virtual standstill on both public transport and the roads.

Equally, all too many state schools are bursting at the seams as they juggle the complexities of ever-expanding class sizes with an increasing number of pupils who don’t speak English as a first language.

As one teacher put it: “We’re not teaching, we’re crowd-managing.”

And if, like me, you’ve had cause to visit the A&E department of a major NHS hospital recently, you’ll see overworked staff doing their best to deal with more walk-in patients than ever before.

I watched as, with unerring patience, they struggled to deal with several arrivals who didn’t speak a word of English and couldn’t produce any identification or proof of address.

A&Es are massively overcrowded too, and doctors struggle to deal with foreign patients with no proof of address or English language skills

Of course, none of these ­inconvenient facts troubles the bleeding hearts who blithely ­advocate a “come one, come all” policy that will have little effect on those of them who have the money to circumnavigate such inconveniences via private healthcare, schooling or transport.

Like Leonardo DiCaprio preaching to the rest of us about global warming before boarding his private jet, they love to virtue-signal their caring credentials before hopping in their 4×4 and driving little Jocasta to her posh prep school or private orthodontist.

We can perhaps forgive or dismiss them as luvvies living in a rarefied world but when elected politicians start spouting the same hypocritical platitudes, it’s another matter.

Diane, if you remember, had previously criticised Labour colleagues for sending their children to private schools, then promptly did so herself because, “I knew what could happen to my son if he was sent to the wrong school and got in with the wrong crowd”.

Diane Abbott says calls for dental checks on child migrants make her ashamed to be British… thank god she’ll never be in power

I don’t have a problem with private schools; indeed my youngest attends one. It’s the “do as I say, not as I do” hypocrisy that sticks in my craw.

Needless to say, private schooling isn’t an option for the majority of her constituents in Hackney, where 36.8 per cent of children are affected by poverty — almost double the 20.1 per cent rate of England as a whole.

Yet their MP seems to be suggesting that a never-ending stream of obviously economic migrants should be allowed in — unchecked and to the detriment of genuine child refugees fleeing a warzone — or face accusations of treating them “like cattle”.

And where will they end up? In the already overcrowded state schools, hospitals, buses and trains where those who don’t have the luxury of choice already feel like cattle themselves.

And the arrival of these adult ‘children’ is to the detriment of genuine child refugees who deserve our help

So, Diane. As the rest of us have to provide proof of age for our child to buy so much as a discounted rail ticket, it’s perfectly acceptable to expect that anyone claiming to be a child but looking suspiciously otherwise should, in the absence of paperwork, undergo a dental check before being allowed in the country.

Besides, as anyone practising joined-up thinking will tell you, allowing them in unchecked will simply drive even more young men into the hands of ruthless people-traffickers before they then embark on the journey to cross several perfectly safe countries to reach the UK.

It isn’t about race, religion or xenophobia. It’s about numbers.

And unless we’re planning to build hundreds of skyscrapers on Exmoor, the Highlands or the Yorkshire Dales, then just where are we going to put them all?

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WE'LL BE BACK

Au natur-hell

Computers that guess your age aren’t all fun and games when they’ve put you at 78

THE latest online craze is to upload a photo of yourself to a website that assesses your age.

Using the picture at the top of this column, I was very excited to be told by how-old.net that I looked 46.

Then I remembered that I actually was 46 when it was taken eight years ago. So, in the interests of accuracy, I uploaded an “au naturel” image taken yesterday at the kitchen table and…

Seventy-flaming-eight.

So, dear reader, the fight back starts here.

While I flatly refuse to go under the knife in the pursuit of cosmetic “improvement”, I fully intend to join an ever-youthful Kylie ­Minogue et al who swear by various non-invasive treatments to help them hold back the years.

Or, in my case, to resemble my actual age rather than Gollum’s older sister.

Watch this space…

Tricks and retreat

What started as a gentle “trick or treat” outing involving young children dressing up as witches has turned into full-scale doorstep warfare as hordes of marauding teenagers wearing everything from killer clown costumes to Scooby Doo (go figure) ring the doorbell long into the night.

Hell, last year, someone even turned up dressed as a corn on the cob.

It’s all become hideously Americanised and, therefore, while I’m perfectly happy for my youngest and her friends to go out and inconvenience others on Monday night, chez Moore will remain in total darkness as a deterrent to the attentions of unsolicited visitors.

And if any of them are brave enough to consistently ring the doorbell and stir the creature that lies within (me without make-up) then they’ll truly know what scary is.

Life imitates art

Catherine Tate’s posh Aga Saga character may be realer than we thought if overheard London mums are anything to go by

HIGHGATE Mums is a new book of comments overheard by author Dan Hall as he mingled among middle class “ladies who brunch”.

“There is far too much truffle oil on my pizza,” was one. Another: “It’s not a jacket, Mummy – it’s called a gilet.”

For those of you who don’t remember the early days of The Catherine Tate Show, one of her characters was called the Aga Saga woman, a spoof on posh people (check it out on YouTube).

Catherine Tate edits Bizarre

In one scene, she goes into a state of shock when a Northern nanny has to look after her children, in another, her son is mocked for mistakenly bringing Wensleydale cheese to his school’s “Parisian picnic”.